Significant capacity on four Eutelsat satellites has been booked by UK and international media organizations for live coverage of the Royal Wedding on April 29 between Prince William and Kate Middleton. A total of 13,000 MHz hours, equivalent to 15 transponders over 24 hours, have been reserved on Eutelsat’s ATLANTIC BIRD™ 1, 2 and 3 satellites as well as on W3A to deliver live images and commentary from up to 48 specially-built studios and 140 Outside Broadcasting vans.
The signals will be transmitted direct to channels worldwide, including in the UK, across Europe and the Middle East, in the USA, China, Africa, Mexico and Brazil. This bandwidth will contribute to delivering coverage of the event to an expected global audience of two billion viewers.
The European Broadcasting Union will deploy its permanent capacity on Eutelsat to cover the event. APTN, Arqiva, ENEX, GlobeCast and Telenor Satellite Broadcasting, who are all longstanding clients of Eutelsat for special events, have all boosted their occasional-use resources with supplemental bandwidth.
“This latest media event of global interest is the largest of the year so far to draw on our occasional-use resources and further underscores the involvement of Eutelsat’s satellites in the complete broadcasting chain,” commented Andrew Wallace, Eutelsat’s Chief Commercial Officer. “In addition to delivering over 3,700 channels to more than 200 million satellite and cable homes across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Eutelsat’s satellites are mobilized on a daily basis for direct video contribution of sports events, concerts, political summits and breaking news to television studios around the world.”
Eutelsat’s booking office works with the world’s leading media outlets to coordinate reservation of capacity for periods starting from 10 minutes for transmissions in multiple formats, including HD, SD and 3D.Significant capacity on four Eutelsat satellites has been booked by UK and international media organizations for live coverage of the Royal Wedding on April 29 between Prince William and Kate Middleton. A total of 13,000 MHz hours, equivalent to 15 transponders over 24 hours, have been reserved on Eutelsat’s ATLANTIC BIRD™ 1, 2 and 3 satellites as well as on W3A to deliver live images and commentary from up to 48 specially-built studios and 140 Outside Broadcasting vans. The signals will be transmitted direct to channels worldwide, including in the UK, across Europe and the Middle East, in the USA, China, Africa, Mexico and Brazil. This bandwidth will contribute to delivering coverage of the event to an expected global audience of two billion viewers.